The third book in the Space Trilogy series, That Hideous Strength, is set on Earth
and concerns the scientific institute of N.I.C.E., which is a front for
sinister supernatural forces. Similar to the story of Bable in the Bible, a
theme of That Hideous Strength was
the human efforts to break the bonds of human mortality and to achieve godhood.
It is man’s obsession with conquering Nature that is a big theme of That Hideous Strength. I wonder was
Lewis trying to outline a desire many of us all have and that has plagued the
human race for centuries. Kings used to send troops out in search of the
Fountain of Youth, a desire to overcome human mortality will always be present
in society, it just manifests itself in different ways. Today, people have
surgeries and wear makeup in order to hold on to their youth and even attempt
to freeze themselves, so that they can come back in a few hundred years and see
what life is like then. People want to be able to say look what I can do, look
what I have accomplished, which leads to the development of things and loss of
time or people in search of it or in attempt of completing a goal. When kings
would send out men in search of the Fountain of Youth, sometimes they would not
come back and little did they realize that their search for immortality caused
men to realize their own mortality and they never came back home from this
mission. Lewis is I think trying to use the mechanism of storytelling to point
out a flaw in humanity that needs to be noticed and monitored, lest we begin to
walk further down this path which for us seems to be becoming more plausible because
of advances in technology. God help us if someday we believe we can be Him.
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